Tens of thousands of freight railroad workers could go on strike after a 30-day cooldown period ends on Friday. President Joe Biden and Cabinet officials are pushing for a deal to prevent the strike, but the freight companies are not budging on key issues for the workers. Ten out of 12 unions in the freight rail industry have reached agreements with the companies, but the two remaining are the two largest, and the ones representing conductors and engineers who actually operate trains.
Freight rail workers face brutal schedules, forcing them to be on call up to 12 hours a day for 14 days in a row. They don’t get sick days, paid or unpaid. While they can get up to five weeks of vacation and 14 paid holidays, that’s in the context of being on call on many weekends and facing penalties if they take any time off without planning ahead to use vacation time. A key sticking point right now is the companies’ refusal to allow unpaid time off for doctor's appointments.
A new, punitive attendance policy at one freight railway, BNSF, has led 700 workers to quit since February—but the company claims the policy is necessary to ensure adequate staffing. Maybe a policy that doesn’t drive people away by the hundreds and push the remainder to the brink of a strike would work better than demanding that people be constantly on call with no breaks, even for family emergencies. But that’s not the capitalist mindset.
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A Presidential Emergency Board appointed by Biden in July called for significant raises and bonuses, but did not address the scheduling and quality of life issues that loom large for the conductors and engineers left with no control over their time. The National Railway Labor Conference, which represents the companies, insists that the companies must be able to “unilaterally establish attendance policies,” even though those attendance policies are making it difficult to retain workers.
“We’re facing the potential of a strike, because the railroad refuses to grant one single day of sick time,” Ron Kaminkow, a member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, told The Washington Post. “It’s about the phone rings at 2 a.m. to be at work at 4 a.m., after just 10 hours of rest prior. It’s about not knowing when you’re coming home and being penalized with discipline—up to firing—if you need to go to the doctor.”
A strike could make existing supply chain issues much, much worse, and the threat of a strike has already prompted Amtrak to cancel some long-distance trips that use tracks owned by freight companies. Those tracks probably won't be available to Amtrak during a strike.
The freight rail companies have also started a slowdown—strategically, the unions argue.
Congress could step in to delay or avert a strike, and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Monday that might happen. The politics are complicated, though, since labor allies among Democrats may not want to weaken the unions’ position, while Republicans may want a strike that they would see as helping them politically through its disruptions and costs to the economy.
What would solve all this, of course, is if the rail companies would allow workers the right to go to the doctor—unpaid—without risking penalties or even their jobs.
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